Lens Reviews / Nikon Lenses i Lab tested

18-35mm	$400 average price

(From Nikon lens literature) ED glass element reduces chromatic aberrations providing superior optical performance - even at maximum aperture. Focus distance of 1 foot to infinity is ideal for landscape, snapshot, candid, environmental, close-up and full length portrait photography. Internal Focusing (IF) design for smooth and fast autofocus.

Test Notes
In the film days, a 18-35mm lens counted as a super wide angle zoom. With the 1.5x crop factor of Nikon's "DX" sensor format, the equivalent 27-52.5mm range only amounts to a range from moderately wide to normal focal length. Still, a zoom lens like the Nikon 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5D ED-IF AF likely offers better optical performance and build quality than the wide end of typical "kit" lenses or longer-ratio zooms would. Let's take a look at the Nikon 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5 and see how it does...

Sharpness
This lens shows very good sharpness across its full focal length range. The corners of the frame are a little soft when shooting wide open, but the amount of softening isn't extreme, and a large area in the center of the frame is very sharp. Stopping down just a half-stop makes a dramatic improvement in corner sharpness, and performance at f/5.6 is very good across the board. (Just-perceptible softening in the extreme corners at 24 & 28mm.) The lens exhibits a very broad sweet spot of excellent sharpness over an aperture range from f/5.6 to f/11. Diffraction limiting began to be a factor on our D200 test body at f/16, and the entire frame is uniformly slightly soft at f/22. Very good performance overall.

Chromatic Aberration
CA in this lens ranges from moderately high to quite low, depending on the focal length, and also on the aperture setting at its shortest focal lengths. At 18mm, both maximum and average CA are fairly high when the aperture is wide open, but decrease somewhat as you stop down. CA at wide angle extends a fair ways into the frame, reflected in the CA graph by the fact that the line showing average CA is closer to that for maximum CA than is usually the case. CA decreases fairly rapidly as you zoom to longer focal lengths, reaching a minimum in the vicinity of 28mm. At 35mm, the maximum CA increases, but the average level stays fairly low, indicating that most of the CA at 35mm appears in the corners and edges of the frame. Overall CA performance is pretty good for a wide-angle zoom.

Shading ("Vignetting")
The Nikon 18-35mm's shading performance was a little unusual, in that it varied only a little with aperture, and hardly at all with focal length. This is good in that it never gets as bad as we've seen with some wide-angle zooms (the maximum is 0.6 EV at 18mm and f/3.5), but it never gets really low either: It's generally a bit higher at 18mm, but varies between 1/4 and 1/3 EV across the full operating range of the lens. Shading of 1/4 EV certainly isn't bad for a wide angle zoom, and is fairly easy to compensate for in Photoshop (particularly CS3), but it's odd to see so little variation from short to long focal lengths, or across the aperture range.

Distortion
The distortion characteristics of this lens are also a bit different from those of most of the lenses we test. In most zoom lenses, we see barrel distortion at the wide end, changing to pincushion at longer focal lengths. In the Nikon 18-35mm though, distortion is always barrel, starting at a moderately high level at 18mm and then decreasing pretty smoothly as you zoom longer. Maximum distortion is 0.93% barrel at 18mm, dropping to 0.22% at 35mm.

AF Operation
While it uses the old-style "screwdriver" mechanical AF coupling to the camera body's AF motor, the Nikon 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5 focused quite quickly, taking well under a second to go from infinity to closest focus on our D200 test body. (We don't have any way of timing this precisely, but I'd estimate worst-case focus time at about a half-second.) It's an internal-focusing (IF) design, so the front element doesn't move when focusing, making it well-suited to use with polarizers and graduated neutral density filters.

Manual focusing was also very smooth and easy, with a small but reasonable amount of rotation needed to shift focus from near to far. - This made it pretty easy to focus manually, unlike some modern AF lenses that try to speed AF operation by reducing the amount of motion required to cover the focal range. This helps with AF speed, but makes some lenses very difficult to focus manually. The Nikon 18-35mm happily manages fast AF and relatively easy manual focusing.

Macro
You generally won't look to a wide angle lens for macro shooting, and the Nikon 18-35mm is no exception. At closest focus on our D200 body, the lens captures an area 5.8 inches (148mm) wide.

Build Quality and Handling
As you'd hope for from a ~$500 lens, build quality on the Nikon 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5 is very good to excellent. Both zoom and focus rings worked smoothly and easily, with no binding, and no noticeable play between the components. Its modest f/3.5-4.5 maximum aperture contributes to its compact size and light weight; it balanced beautifully on our various Nikon bodies, yet felt very solid in the hand. As mentioned above, while the focus ring requires relatively little rotation to go from infinity to closest focus, provides enough travel that we had no difficulty focusing manually. All in all, a very well-built, nice-operating wide zoom.

The Competition
As we noted at the outset, this lens was a super-wide zoom in the film days, but now only covers a range of focal lengths from moderately wide to normal. It competes with the wide end of Nikon's kit lenses, the wide end of some of the super-zooms (the 18-200 or 18-250 optics), and with some third-party wide zooms. We'll take a look here at some of the more obvious competitors that overlap its focal length range. (There are a lot of lenses that overlap this range, we'll restrict our comments below to only those we've tested as of this posting in mid-July 2007, and will furthermore try keep our comments brief.)

Nikon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED AF-S DX (~$130 street)
This is the inexpensive "kit" lens that accompanies Nikon's entry-level DSLRs. Surprisingly, it beats the 18-35mm on center sharpness, but its corners are less well-behaved. It has considerably more vignetting at its 18mm focal length, but less as you zoom longer. It also has less CA at 18mm, but more at 35mm. Something of a toss-up, but build quality is much higher in the 18-35mm.

Nikon 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX (~~$300 street)
This is the somewhat higher-end "kit" lens originally sold with the D70, and also found in some kit configurations with the D80. The 18-35mm wins the sharpness race, but the 18-70 easily outclasses its CA performance. The 18-35mm's vignetting is considerably lower at 18mm, but the 18-70mm wins as you zoom longer. Distortion levels are fairly similar. Again, not a clear winner, either way.

Nikon 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S DX (~$300 street)
This is the somewhat higher-end "kit" lens introduced and frequently bundled with the D80. It does a surprisingly good job in terms of sharpness, beating the 18-35's center performance across their shared focal length range, although the corners of the 18-35mm flatten out more quickly as you stop down. Chromatic aberration is a weak point of the 18-135 though, and the 18-35mm beats it pretty consistently there (although not at wide apertures and 18mm). The 18-135mm also loses big time in vignetting, particularly at large aperture settings. Its distortion is also much higher. Overall, it's clear that the 18-35mm would be a better choice for wide-angle photography.

Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S DX (~$1,300 street)
The Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 DX is an exceptional wide zoom lens, but its large, constant maximum aperture of f/2.8 means its both much larger and much more expensive than the 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5. This gorgeous lens beats the 18-35 fairly handily on sharpness at the wide end, but it's more of a toss-up in the vicinity of 35mm. Maximum CA is close at 17/18mm, but the 18-35mm wins at the longer end of its range. Distortion on the 17-55 shifts from almost 1% barrel at 17mm to about 0.3% pincushion at 28mm, you'll have to decide whether you its distortion behavior to that of the 18-35mm. Vignetting in the two lenses is close at 17/18mm, but the 17-55 is better than the 18-35mm at longer focal lengths.

Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S DX VR (~$820 street)
This is a higher-priced "vacation lens" from Nikon, the idea being you can just slap one lens on your camera and handle pretty much any subject while on a trip. Since wide angle can be critical for landscape, architecture and interior shots, you might wonder how the 18-35 compares to the wide end of the 18-200 VR. Perhaps a big of an odd comparison, it's easy to see why a dedicated, shorter-range zoom might be preferable to a long-ratio vacation lens for some applications: The 18-35mm handily beats the 18-200mm VR in just about every parameter, over the focal length range they share. The 18-200mm's corner sharpness is much worse, its CA at 24 and 35mm is higher, its distortion levels are generally higher (shifting from over 1% barrel at 18mm to almost 0.7% pincushion at 35mm, and its vignetting at 18mm is considerably worse. (Its vignetting does beat that of the 18-35mm at 24 and 35mm though. Bottom line, if you expect to do a lot of shooting in the 18-35mm range, the 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5 is worth having, rather than relying on the wide end of the 18-200mm VR optic.

Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 DC Macro (~$370 street)
The Sigma 18-70mm f/2.8-4.5 DC is a sub-frame lens with a wider maximum aperture and a longer zoom range than the Nikon 18-35. It has excellent sharpness and makes a good alternative to inexpensive kit lenses. It beats the 18-35mm handily in the sharpness race, and edges it out in CA performance as well. its vignetting is also better across the board, when shooting at the same aperture settings as are available in the 18-35mm. Distortion is a toss-up between the two, the Sigma switching to slight pincushion at longer focal lengths.

Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 Di II LD Aspherical IF SP AF (~$430 street)
Here's a real gem of a little lens from Tamron that goes just slightly wider, a bit longer, and with a wider (constant) aperture than the Nikon 18-35mm. This lens turned in really excellent results in our testing, and has been hugely popular with our readers. It's as sharp or sharper than the Nikon over their shared focal length range when shot wide open, and does considerably better when stopped down to match the Nikon's aperture range. It also beats the Nikkor by a nose on both chromatic aberration and shading. Distortion is mostly lower than that of the Nikkor, but has a more typical behavior, with barrel distortion at wide angle switching to pincushion at longer focal length. The Nikon's distortion is higher at the short end, lower at its long end. Call it a tossup. We have to reach back into the past to make a build quality comparison between the two (we don't have a sample of the Tamron here at the moment), but if memory serves it's a pretty close race, with the Nikon perhaps winning by a hair.) Bottom line, the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 Di II is a tough competitor that delivers excellent optical performance with a wide (and constant) maximum aperture, a longer zoom range, and a slightly lower selling price than the Nikon.

Conclusion
The Nikon 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5 is a good-performing, well-built, smoothly-operating wide-to-normal zoom lens. If you frequently find yourself shooting within its focal length range, it would be a good step up from typical kit lenses. On the other hand though, the remarkable Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 Di II gives more performance in just about every parameter at a price that's comparable or lower, and the Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 DC Macro gives it a run for its money as well. If you want to stay within the Nikon product line, the 18-35mm is a great lens. If you don't mind going the third-party route, the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 or Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 are both attractive alternatives.

Sample Photos!
It's occurred to us that readers might find images shot with the lenses we test helpful in their evaluation process. We're thus happy to begin providing (starting with this lens) sample photos of two laboratory test targets. The VFA target should give you a good idea of sharpness in the center and corners, as well as some idea of the extent of barrel or pincushion distortion and chromatic aberration, while the Still Life subject may help in judging contrast and color. We'll shoot both images using the cameras respective default JPEG settings and manual white balance, so the images should be quite consistent from lens to lens.

As appropriate, we'll shoot these with both full-frame and sub-frame lenses, at a range of focal lengths, and at both maximum aperture and f/8. For the "VFA" target (the viewfinder accuracy target from Imaging Resource), we'll also provide sample crops from the center and upper-left corner of each shot, so you can quickly get a sense of relative sharpness, without having to download and inspect the full-res images. To avoid space limitations with the layout of our review pages, indexes to the test shots will launch as separate windows.

To see the sample shots from this lens captured with this lens on our D200 test body, just click on either of the thumbnails below, and scroll as needed in the window that will appear.

Still Life shot

VFA target